A press statement by the trio of FAO’s media relations
officer, Mr. Peter Mayer, IFAD Communications Officer, Joanne Levitan and WFP
Media officer, Frances Kennedy, said the 2015-16 El Niño weather phenomenon has
been one of the strongest and most widespread of the past hundred years,
destroying the livelihoods of farming families across the globe and leaving
millions of people hungry.

Drought, they said, has gripped large swathes of East and
southern Africa, ravaging harvests, while in Asia and the Pacific, drought has
hit East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Viet Nam, whereas, El Niño associated
storms have wiped out harvests on Fiji and its neighbours.

NaijaAgroNet reports that El Niño’s impact on agriculture
has continued to drive up food insecurity, even though the weather event is
over, which is likely to be compounded by La Niña in a few months’ time.

Response plans, the UN agencies said, were in place that
could prevent more people from going hungry – but they must be adequately
funded to avoid another prolonged humanitarian crisis.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that on Wednesday 6 July, FAO, the
International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), and the World Food
Programme (WFP) – are convening a one-day meeting to look at these challenges and
how to best respond to them.

Government representatives, regional bodies, food security
experts, agricultural development practitioners, humanitarian response
specialists and international donors were in attendance.